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Laramie GPS Mapping Party Set for Sept. 17

September 8, 2011 — The University of Wyoming
Geographic Information Science Center (WyGISC) will host a free community GPS
mapping party from 1-7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17, at the historic Laramie Railroad
Depot, First and Kearney streets in downtown Laramie.

Part of WyGISC's 15th
anniversary celebration is to raise awareness about local
geography and geographic literacy and to grow the amount of geographic
information freely available for the community, says Jeff Hamerlinck, WYGISC
director. He says participants will learn and share basic Global Positioning
System (GPS)-based mapping skills and have an opportunity to go into the community for an afternoon of
collecting locations they identify as important, useful and unique points of
interest.

"The Laramie Mapping Party
reflects a growing social media trend centered on volunteered geographic
information, or VGI," Hamerlinck says. Also known as "Locational crowdsourcing,"
VGI involves citizens collecting and contributing data that's tied to a
specific geographic location and then disseminated for public use.

Data collected will be
made available through the OpenStreetMap Foundation map database, an online
website dedicated to creating a free, editable world map based on local
community contributors. Established in 2006, the OpenStreetMap Foundation had
400,000 contributors as of May 2011.

Mapping parties have been
a part of the OpenStreetMap initiative since its early beginnings, Hamerlinck
says. The Laramie Mapping Party will be the first OpenStreetMap event held in
Wyoming. Data will also be distributed through other state and national
geospatial data clearinghouses.